Any town, or word, ending in 'n' would, have been better than the one used by the setter, but, as always in cryptic crosswords, we just have to treat words as fodder and not read anything else into it
Which town, Jazzgirl? Essen? Berlin? My dad, who taught me how to do crosswords many years ago, served as a bomb-aimer in Lancasters in 1945. He would have been horrified by this clue.
I know how you feel, crucifer. One of my family flew Lancasters and was in the Berlin air lift. Perhaps a letter of complaint is advised. By any town or word, I meant somewhere other than in Germany, eg Eton, Swindon
But the word-play only works with Dresden! Besides which, neither Eton nor Swindon had thousands of tons of incendiary bombs dropped on them in the space of 48 hours. Even Churchill described the bombing of Dresden as an act of terror, causing a bit of a falling-out with Bomber Command. It's just a dumb, thoughtless clue
It is thoughtless (even though Lancaster refers to Burt and not to aircraft) I feel sure there will be complaints. I have searched elsewhere and no one has commented so far. I await Guardian's response in due course.
Jazzgirl, I understand perfectly well how the clue works. The surface reading clearly refers to the fire-bombing of Dresden. A bit like setting a clue referring to Hiroshima being "nuked" or "atomised".
26d is certainly a rather clumsy attempt at a semi andlit clue by his own high standards especially as 'Lancaster' requires 'for example'. Mind you, he's also once again omitted to indicate that 8d requires the American spelling, easily achieved by adding 'across the pond'.